Morning watch 6-23-11
By Rochester falcon watcher MAK
Hi everyone! Yesterday morning I had a brief watch. I had forgotten my phone and couldn’t tweet plus I never found Beauty either in the little over an hours time that I spent downtown. Today was a different story. About 20 minutes into my watch I found Beauty on the 2nd ibeam west corner of the OCSR building.She left before I could get closer for a pic. I found her 5 minutes later on the northeast corner of the launchpad over on the Kodak Office building.
The red light was still on as it was a dark morning with rain showers. The Beautyful one and I hung out here for a little over an hour when she took off flying south toward the downtown area. It would be another hour before I would see her again. In the meantime, I watched some ducklings,ducks and a Great Blue Heron in the river between the Broad and Court St. bridges.
A gentleman named Ricky stopped to chat about the ducklings. We counted a total of 18 in different spots down on the rocks. We then discussed the size difference between Peregrines,hawks and eagles. He went on his way and a couple minutes later I spotted DebbieH walking up the sidewalk. We chatted about the crane that’s parked in the Thomson Reuters parking lot having been lifted to Mercury on Tuesday while I was in Toronto for Harlies’ banding. Deb and I concluded that they attached a wing onto the bent leg of Mercury matching the one on Mercurys’ straight leg. It looked a bit rusty so I think they are probably made out of some sort of metal.
Make sure to click on pics to get a larger image. We crossed over to the other side of the bridge so she could see the little ducklings for a few minutes and then she left for work. Donna informed me not too long after that Harlie was missing as reported by Kat who was on the scene at the Harlequin nest site. I decided to get home so I could get further updates. As I was ready to leave Beauty showed up under the northeast wing of the Times Square building to bid me farewell.
To watch a video of the ducklings go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEAmUdIHHpU
And for a few more pics from my watch follow this link:
Have a great day everyone! 🙂
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:49 AM
Oh those baby ducks are so cute and so many of them. Great report as always, thanks!
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:55 AM
Love the ducklings! That shot of the GBH is gorgeous.
June 23rd, 2011 at 11:58 AM
I knew the duckling video would be a big hit! They are just too cute!!! 🙂
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:25 PM
Hi,
This is what I was told about the work being done on the building and the statue: “repointing and waterproofing the Aqueduct building and Mercury statue”. I think the wing was already there.
The crane will be back next week to finish, it was starting to rain too much this week.
Thanks for the info and those ducks are very cute!
June 23rd, 2011 at 1:51 PM
The wing was not visible from our camera until now. It is either new, or it has been refurbished and repositioned. (Maybe it was bent downward years ago when Rhea Mae landed on it.)
The wing, like the rest of the statue, is made out of copper. It is shiny now, but it will turn green over time. A couple of shiny copper patches were placed on the other foot too.
June 23rd, 2011 at 3:46 PM
It is always a great day when we get to read good reports and see wonderful pictures such as those you provide.
June 23rd, 2011 at 6:12 PM
Love the ducklings! Great pics and report!
June 26th, 2011 at 10:14 PM
Did you think I’d miss this Shaky! 🙂